Okay, okay, so, you're probably wondering, what weird Doctor Who related crap has Quatermass got under his bonnet, hmm? Well, actually, I've been thinking. I considered doing a six degrees of separation game here, and while doing it with Kevin Bacon didn't hold much appeal, I did consider, for a time, doing it with Christopher Lee, who is probably more of a central figure to the film industry than Bacon, but then, I found myself becoming sadistic.

People often say to me that Doctor Who is not at the centre of the universe. As far as the British film and television industry is concerned, I respectfully disagree, and with some effort, it can be expanded to include the rest of the English language film and television industry. Why? Because Doctor Who, despite its cheesy reputation, has managed to involve some of the best actors in Britain, and also many of the more harder working ones.

Why Tom Baker? Simple. The man himself has appeared in not only seven years of Doctor Who, but has also appeared in various other films and television shows. There is a certain saturation of him in the industry.

For an example, let's take...Harrison Ford. How do you get from Harrison Ford to Tom Baker?

Simple: Harrison Ford starred in The Empire Strikes Back, as did Julian Glover (or you could choose Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). Glover appeared alongside Tom Baker in Doctor Who: City of Death.

Rules are simple: The actors involved have to have been in the same movie or television story. Whether they appear in the same scene together is irrelevant. Simple cameos are frowned upon, but if they are properly credited and so on, that's fine. Voice acting roles are fine.

Quatermass wrote:People often say to me that Doctor Who is not at the centre of the universe. As far as the British film and television industry is concerned, I respectfully disagree, and with some effort, it can be expanded to include the rest of the English language film and television industry. Why? Because Doctor Who, despite its cheesy reputation, has managed to involve some of the best actors in Britain, and also many of the more harder working ones.

What a silly premise. You could say the same thing about any TV show that had a lot of quest stars on it. Hell, you might as well say that Kevin Bacon's recent sitcom is the center of the universe.

Just because a show's star has been in a million other things doesn't make their show the center of any universe beyond that contained in the imagination of its fans. Other than its huge fan base in Britain and smaller groups of acolytes elsewhere (and I'm not one of them) its influence has been negligible compared to say, Monty Python, which had a profound effect on American comedy in the 1970s (Saturday Night Live and all of its descendants would have been inconceivable without Python leading the way).

This isn't meant to invalidate the central premise that Tom Baker may have as many six-degree connections as Bacon. It's meant to punch a hole in the premise of Dr. Who being a cultural bellwhether of anything.

Excuse me, but that statement was, to a degree, tongue-in-cheek when I wrote it. Except where it isn't.

Besides, the whole point of this game is connectivity. Tom Baker is the longest running Doctor, Doctor Who is the longest running science fiction serial. The sheer amount of actors from his era alone would be enough to get some connectivity in.

It's like the TV series over here called The Bill. It's a police series that was going (maybe still is) for years and years and over those years they used just about every British actor they could find. Indeed, one chat show (can't remember which) used to ask their guests - have you been on The Bill?

Tonyblack wrote:It's like the TV series over here called The Bill. It's a police series that was going (maybe still is) for years and years and over those years they used just about every British actor they could find. Indeed, one chat show (can't remember which) used to ask their guests - have you been on The Bill?

I think The Bill finished last year, actually. But you could say the same thing about, say Coronation Street.

The reason why I chose Doctor Who is that it is a British icon that'd be more recognised elsewhere than The Bill. I'd bet that raisindot hasn't heard of it beyond vague references.

Quatermass wrote:The reason why I chose Doctor Who is that it is a British icon that'd be more recognised elsewhere than The Bill.

Well, your obsession with Doctor Who is probably also part of the reason

SDoKB is a fun game, I wouldn't mind a thread on it, but since Doctor Who is such a British institution, I'd prefer the original version so more could play.
The only links I myself could make to Tom Baker are through Little Britain since I've only seen the last three Doctors.

Scientists are predicting the future will be much more futuristic than originally predicted

Quatermass wrote:The reason why I chose Doctor Who is that it is a British icon that'd be more recognised elsewhere than The Bill.

Well, your obsession with Doctor Who is probably also part of the reason

Yeah, but that was the most obvious reason.

Willem wrote:SDoKB is a fun game, I wouldn't mind a thread on it, but since Doctor Who is such a British institution, I'd prefer the original version so more could play. The only links I myself could make to Tom Baker are through Little Britain since I've only seen the last three Doctors.

Pfft. I know precisely one film Kevin Bacon was in: Apollo 13.

BTW, Tom Baker has appeared in a number of other things. He appeared (before Doctor Who) in Nicholas and Alexandria and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and (afterwards) in Blackadder, Dungeons and Dragons, and the reboot of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)